アジア研究
Online ISSN : 2188-2444
Print ISSN : 0044-9237
ISSN-L : 0044-9237
Special Issue: The Future of Democracy in India
Foreign Policy in the Modi Era
VANAIK Achin
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2021 年 67 巻 2 号 p. 69-80

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There are lines of continuity as well as newer shifts in the Modi government’s foreign policy when compared to what preceded it, both with respect to the 2004–14 Congress-led coalition governments and the first 1998–2004 BJP-led governments. The marriage of promoting neoliberal economic globalisation and conventional ‘realpolitik’ continued to shape the Modi regime’s foreign policy; the latter leading to the pursuit of a closer relationship with the US to contain China, an effort accelerated by the eruption after decades of serious armed clashes in mid-2020 at the Sino-Indian border. Of course, with a government as deeply committed as this one is to a Hindutva-based ideology of ingrained Islamophobia, this would find expression in foreign policy matters as well. First, the Indian government initiated new anti-Muslim migration laws specifically directed at its neighbours Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh whose domestic purpose is to reinforce the idea of India being a ‘Hindu nation’ by introducing religious discrimination in citizenship status and rights against Muslims in the country. Second, the Modi government for the first time ever launched an airstrike deep into Pakistani territory to bomb an alleged terrorist site in February 2019 which act, along with the later annulment of Article 370 in the Constitution, removed the issue of Kashmir from any future bilateral agenda, thus guaranteeing a near permanency of hostile relations between New Delhi and Islamabad. Third, relations with Israel (given the similarities between Zionism and Hindutva) have dramatically improved at all levels with Modi being the first Indian PM to officially visit Israel. The key global dilemmas of nuclear arms-racing, climate change and rising levels of economic inequalities and suffering have been given no real concern in foreign policy thinking and practice. Rather, Indian foreign policy under Modi has been motivated as much by how it can help to bring about domestic consolidation of Hindutva ideology and forces as about extending Indian power abroad.

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